It's not too late to start doing serious planning all along Africa's coastline -- and along the continent's great rivers. How big a threat to Africa do rising oceans pose? NASA suggests at least one way of looking at the threat, as seen above. Just looking at the immensity of Africa should suggest (prompt) more localized solutions as well.
READ: The Economist ~ "The True True Size of Africa"
Land-locked countries would appear less threatened by rising seas, but that would be a wish rudely to be shaken by catastrophic events that may initially seem to occur in slow-motion. Who doesn't trade with other countries via the seas, these days? Not Uganda. Not Rwanda. Not Mali. Not Zambia. None.
Rising seas pose secondary threats as well to the hinterland of every country with a coastline, such as Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, DRC and Nigeria. The coming flooding of Egypt, from rising seas and a clogging the Nile Delta, will be of epic proportions, and will pose mortal danger to the great monuments -- which are all of Africa's heritage, and not just Egypt's. More existentially, flooding may lead to unprecedented migration into the rest of Africa, Europe and elsewhere.
And yet migration in itself may be the lesser problem, more serious ones being the attendant political instability, armed conflict and redrawing of national boundaries. So, if there is going to be armed conflict along the Nile's catchment, it will far less likely be over how to share the Grand Old River's waters, as some have suggested. Rather, it will be over there being too much water in low-lying and, in the circumstances, hapless Egypt. Hapless but with deadly arms.
History will be turned on its head, seems to me.
READ: The Economist ~ "The True True Size of Africa"
Land-locked countries would appear less threatened by rising seas, but that would be a wish rudely to be shaken by catastrophic events that may initially seem to occur in slow-motion. Who doesn't trade with other countries via the seas, these days? Not Uganda. Not Rwanda. Not Mali. Not Zambia. None.
Rising seas pose secondary threats as well to the hinterland of every country with a coastline, such as Tanzania, Kenya, South Africa, DRC and Nigeria. The coming flooding of Egypt, from rising seas and a clogging the Nile Delta, will be of epic proportions, and will pose mortal danger to the great monuments -- which are all of Africa's heritage, and not just Egypt's. More existentially, flooding may lead to unprecedented migration into the rest of Africa, Europe and elsewhere.
And yet migration in itself may be the lesser problem, more serious ones being the attendant political instability, armed conflict and redrawing of national boundaries. So, if there is going to be armed conflict along the Nile's catchment, it will far less likely be over how to share the Grand Old River's waters, as some have suggested. Rather, it will be over there being too much water in low-lying and, in the circumstances, hapless Egypt. Hapless but with deadly arms.
History will be turned on its head, seems to me.
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